Rat Catcher
by Assimbya
Summary: Nosferatu and the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The rat confronts the rat catcher.


The two men stood in the center of the desolate street, looking at one another. One was dressed in black, close-fitting, foreign garments which showed every detail of his skeletal form. The other was draped in a long cloak, patterned in striped of red and yellow so brightly dyed that, amidst the pale stone of the town, he seemed and apparition.

Around their feet, rats swarmed.

"I came too late," said the man in the cloak, "I could have saved them, but I came too late."

"I remember," the man in black spoke, with a creaking voice which sounded like stones speaking, "that I have been driven from many abodes by a fey man with garments bright as fire and a pipe as intoxicating as birdsong."

"Yes," the piper replied, "that was I."

"I remember that once, in my native Transylvania, a mountain gaped open, rent as though by the hand of a god, and from its cloven mouth did pour forth a great train of children in the ragged garments of the peasantry, with eyes made bright with the sights of that world which is neither heaven nor hell nor earth. Behind them, standing in the mountain's crack, I saw a figure, his form shimmering. The children settled in the valley below my castle, and they never had need for cross or garlic to safeguard themselves from me, for they were touched by the fey and were forever safe from my feeding."

"Yes, yes," the piper nodded, "that was my work."

"Why," asked the vampire, and there was no accusation in his ancient voice, "do you dog my steps, One Who Lives Beneath the Hill?"

"My job," said the piper, and his graceful fingers lit upon the instrument of pale wood which hung about his neck, "is to cleanse."

"And I," the vampire agreed, "am vermin, pestilence, plague-bearer, nosophoros. I corrupt all I touch."

"I call forth the rats," the piper told him, "they follow me, soft bodies treading over one another in their rush to reach my song. I call them into the seas, the rivers, they lakes, where they drown. The human streets are left empty, and, quickly, the madness of the plague-fever abates. When I call, you too come, drawn with those creatures who live in your essence."

"Call me into your hill," the vampire told-asked-begged, "draw me into your whirling fey dances. When my human victims, jubilant with the nearness of death, dance in madness, deadly nightshade wreathing their hands, I dance with them. But your people have such grace as I cannot imagine. In the hill, there is no sunlight. I wish now, in my old age, to see the beauty that left those children's eyes glittering as gems."

The piper shook his head. "That place is not for you." He paused and looked around. "You have won here. As I entered the town, a procession of dark coffins passed me. A woman with fever flushing her cheeks called me to share in her funeral banquet. In this town, the rats shall reign for long decades till the humans forget they ever lived here. I leave it to you." But his fingers danced upon his pipe. "Yet there are those I still must save."

He lifted the pipe to his lips and began to play, a soft melody like bubbling brooks and playful starlings and childhood dreams. The vampire closed his eyes and listened with his pointed bat's-ears.

The children came, their footsteps soft, their small hands extended in longing. There were few of them, for many had already fallen to the plague, and, even of those who came, in many the plague-signs were visible. But the piper did not seem troubled by this. In his arms he lifted one of the youngest, a long-untended orphan boy of less than two years.

"I shall go now," the piper told the vampire, and even with his music silent for a moment, the children stayed still, entranced. "We shall meet again, in some other quiet town."

The vampire shook his head. His eyes were not upon the piper's face. "Not yet." He took a breath, as though to taste the air. "A woman, beautiful and virtuous, gives herself to me this night in holy sacrifice. I shall stay here till her bones are dust."

The piper understood the ancient rituals, the woman who dies to save her husband, the maiden bloody upon the altar, the iron knife and the communion wine and the monster's pelt thrown into the fire. "You go to meet your fate."

The vampire did not contradict him. "She is my fate and I am hers. We are bound up together."

"You are both ensorcelled," said the piper.

"This magic is not as yours," said the vampire, "it is older than you are."

"Nothing is older than I am," the piper told him, and with that, he began again to play his soft song, and the children followed him from Bremen.


End file.
